Jack’s love of hillwalking began with a trip to the North-West Highlands where he and his son, Tom, began to explore the extraordinary mountains of Coigach and Inverpolly. Now this experienced hillwalker and geographer writes Highland Journal, an illustrated memoir looking back on his adventures. Joining the Jolly Boys, an anarchic group of Munro baggers, Jack was initiated into the world of hillwalking. Highland Journal records his adventures, the geology, the natural history and the idiosyncrasies of his climbing companions. With hair-raising moments such as walks in the deep snows of the Highland winter using crampons and ice axe and a mountain rescue on the Cuillin of Skye, readers witness the author’s transition from wide-eyed hillwalking novice to competent mountaineer. Illustrated with Jack’s own drawings and watercolours, Highland Journal also includes distinctive relief maps of each mountain climbed. The book will appeal to hillwalkers and Munro baggers, as well as readers interested in landscape and wildlife and lovers of adventure.

Samuel Johnson and James Boswell spent the autumn of 1773 touring the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland. Both kept detailed notes of their impressions, and later published separate accounts of their journey. These accounts of their great tour contain some of the finest pieces of travel writing ever produced: they are magnificent historical documents and also portraits of two extraordinary personalities. In the vivid prose of these two famous men of letters, the Highlands and the Western Islands spring to life. The juxtaposition of the two very different accounts creates an unsurpassed portrait of a society which was utterly alien to the Europe of the Enlightenment, and which was straining on the brink of calamitous change. These great masterpieces, entertaining, profound, and marvellously readable are also our last chronicles of a lost age and people.

This published work was part of a journal written by the late Queen Victoria of Britain. It specifically focuses on her life period whenever she spent her time in the Scottish Highlands with her family and friends. Of note is the extensive detail of all the places the Queen visited and even the things she carry along with her in her travels.